Grades

I did this term's first on-line update. I had to reassess several of the student's grades and honestly evaluate their performance for me. I was surprised to see that I had a few that were getting F's.

I saw this chart tonight and chuckled.



Apparently there are a lot of American's who think that President Obama also deserves an F. The advice I give to my students that are getting F's right now is that it's early in the term, they've dug themselves a hole, but it's not too deep that they can't get themselves out of it. They only have to stop digging and get to work.

It's the same advice I'd give to Mr. O.

EDIT:

May 3, 2009

Since an anonymous commenter bravely came forward to dispute the polling numbers, calling them inaccurate, I thought I'd provide a little more information for the 'discussion'. But, I do issue a challenge to the cowardly commenter to come forward and identify themself, lest we all think that they are hiding behind the internet and it's warm cozy anonymity. Calling out the chicken? Sure...yes, I am! Hey 'Anonymous', let's take a real hard look at that poll you are referring to shall we? Ok, let's. Since you won't open your mind and look at the actual data, rather than just taking the number at face value, it tells me that YOU are the one looking at only the things YOU want to see. Find a warm'n'fuzzy about Mr. O and you're happy. Dig into the facts and find out what's really going on? Never mind...it's too hard and I'm busy stuffing envelopes for SUWA or Al Gore.

Before he thinks that I'm resorting to a personal attack, let's look at the data from the poll that he is claiming to use.

Personally I don't think he used a CBS approval poll. I think he is referring to the ABC/Washington Post poll which fleshes out a little like this.

This is from the ABC/Washington Post poll dated April 26, 2009.



Let's look at the numbers. First of all, the MSNBC poll that the original commentator...let's just call them 'Anonymous' (oh wait, that's what they chose to call themselves anyway) disagreed with...that poll was answered by 1.8 million people. MSNBC viewers, which we all know is the Olberman/Matthews propoganda arm of the Democratic party. Dispute that? How can you when Olberman and Matthews themselves relish the thought of it.

The ABC/Washington Post poll talks about it's own polling methods. Quoted from the source:

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone
April 21-24, 2009, among a random national sample of 1,072 adults, including landline
and cell-phone-only respondents and an oversample of African-Americans (weighted to
their correct share of the national population). Results for the full sample have a 3-point error margin; click here for a detailed description of sampling error. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, PA.

One thousand adults are determining the nations approval rating of the President? Are you kidding me? People who rely on these numbers as an indicator of how to direct and determine policy are relying on one thousand people? And what is this 'oversample' business? How can it be called an oversample for African-Americans if it just weights to their correct share of the national population? What does that mean anyway?

Anyway, if we take the polling methodology as scientific (which I'm not sure I do at this point...), and the sample group as broad enough and large enough to reflect the voice of the average American (which I'm not sure I do either...), and we assume that the pollsters didn't just call people in New York, LA and Portland, (which we don't...), we can move on to analyze the data.

Still with me Anonymous? I hope so.

For the policies that Obama campaigned AGAINST Bush on, namely Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror (which has conveniently been renamed to 'international troublemaking'), Obama gets high marks. It is interesting to note that his policies haven't changed at all, in fact, Obama is putting more troops into Afghanistan than Bush had. Essentially Obama is continuing the Bush policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now how can Obama campaign to to the exact opposite of the 'failed policies of the past eight years', but continue to do the same things? Interesting...

On to his major points of problem for the poll takers and poll readers (or non-readers...).

Economy = poor
Taxes = poor
Health Care = poor
Deficit = poor
Immigration = poor
Automakers = poor

This tells me that when the American public sees Obama enacting the socialist policies of taxing the rich to pay for the poor, health care, being lax on immigration and controlling the US auto industry, he scores very poorly. Americans stand for Capitalism, not Socialism. To argue that what Obama is doing is not akin to Socialism is to bury your head in the sand. He claims he does not want to grow the size of government, but what has he done in his glorious 100 days? Yep, he's grown the size of government. A lot.

The very issues that Obama rallied the American people against are the ones he's scoring high on. The issues that Obama is most strongly identifying with and enacting with reckless abandon, are the ones he scores lowest on. He *is* going contrary to the will of the American people on the things that will have the longest lasting domestic impression.

I didn't know this, but in this poll is something called a 'personal favorability' rating.



These numbers tell me that the American people are saying, "Obama, we really like you, and we're not taking anything else into consideration when making that decision".

Perhaps the most interesting thing of all is how they break down this 'approval rating'. A dissection is in order:



Let's put this into perspective. Again, my original post was speaking to students and grades, both from a teachers and a parent's viewpoint. Let's say you were asking your student's teacher if they were doing a good job in their class. The teacher says, "I somewhat approve of Johnny's performance in my class". Would that make you happy? Would it make you as happy as the teacher saying, "I strongly approve of Johnny's performance in my class".

Well, honestly, does the 'somewhat approve' label really sound like a resounding endorsement? Does it? If you go to a restaurant and you 'somewhat approve' of the food, do you think you'll go back? If you bought a pair of jeans and your friends 'somewhat approved' of how they made your butt look, do you think you'd wear them again?

Obama is getting a 'somewhat approve' from 27 percent of those polled. How can the media trot those folks out as being in the same camp as the 'strongly approve' folks? Well, I guess they have to draw a line somewhere, and that's where they did. It's their poll, so I'll let them have at it.

Also, what about those people that answered 'no opinion'. I cannot believe that it is as high as seven percent. Clearly those people don't approve of what the president is doing or they'd be saying so. 'I liked the food at the restaurant but I have no opinion on it'. That doesn't cut it for those people to be in the 'approve' camp, but does it quite cut it for them to be int he 'disapprove' camp? Maybe not. I just have a hard time believing that you can find anyone who doesn't have an opinion one way or the other on any of these issues. I wonder if they voted this past November, just who they voted for?

The problem for me is that we hear approval numbers and we automatically think that 72 out of 100 people approve of EVERYTHING that Obama is doing. Clearly from the data provided in the ABC/Washington Post poll we see that it is not the case. Quite the contrary.

Anonymous is claiming that the CBS poll he is referring to gives Obama a 68% approval rating. In my classroom a 68% is a D+. Would you be happy if your little Johnny was getting a D+ ?

I still say Obama is getting an F, the MSNBC poll from 2 weeks ago and the ABC poll from this week are right about the same. Here is a link for the non-believing anonymouse liberals. (yes, I misspelled 'anonymous' like that on purpose...)

CLICK HERE FOR AN EDUCATION THAT MIGHT HURT YOU.